


Mutual Obsession

by iamsquashie



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-05 08:57:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13384446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamsquashie/pseuds/iamsquashie
Summary: Obsessive Chester-centric musings from the perspectives of various people.Originally a standalone. Continued by request. Ratings vary from chapter to chapter. Mostly not explicit.[1: Mike, Brad & fans // 2: Dave // 3: Rob // 4: Joe & others // 5: Mike & Brad (again) // 6: Mike & Brad (Chester POV) // 7: Chester's bodyguard POV // 8: Mike POV // 9: Jared Leto POV]





	1. Mike, Brad & fans

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LPfiction.com, starting on 7 December 2017.

“Nu-metal”, they call it in the magazines. These bands of grimy, intimidating dudes rapping and screaming their dark and edgy lyrics over the roar of aggressive guitars and frantic drums and dark synth. Testosterone in abundance. They’re taking up space, they’re taking their place. They don’t want to sing you a song; they want to be balls fucking deep inside your head, obliterating everything else with The New Sound.

White men and more white men, sweat and beards, baggy pants and backwards hats, wallet chains and T-shirt slogans, tats and piercings. Misogyny. Profanity. Fuck you, fuck you, here we are, fucking you, in your ear, in your face, we don’t care, we don’t care, fuck you.

And then there’s Linkin Park. Jewish, Asian, mixed-race, mixed-faith, melting pot.

And there’s Chester Bennington.

Brad and Mike watch him doing so many of the things required to slot them in with these other bands, these other dudes, and yet still, somehow, Chester is something else entirely, and they both know it. They’d known it the minute he started singing at his audition. Glances exchanged, throats cleared, a blush on Brad, Mike shifting slightly in his seat. “Yeah. He’s the one.”

He is pixie-small and bespectacled. He’s got the body modifications, but somehow, on him, they’re pretty, not hardcore. He wears the oversized clothes and the caps and the chains, but his delicate beauty can’t be disguised. He tries to lower his voice in interviews, to sound like the dude he thinks he ought to be, but when he stops trying, his voice is lilting and sweet, his laugh bubbly, his smile cute.

Sometimes, he forgets where he is, what genre he’s been shoehorned into, and he undulates his body against the mic stand, sexual and serpentine, he bites his lip, the sweat trickles down his hairless chest.

He screams, but it’s not a guttural, manly growl. It’s a tenor scream, shredding the air with emotion but without aggression. It sends tingles through Brad’s body every single time he hears it. He often catches Mike’s eye on stage at the shows and he knows that Mike is feeling what he’s feeling, even if neither of them could ever venture to put it into words.

Chester ticks enough boxes to run with this crowd, to spearhead this musical revolution, even if he’s completely distinct from the majority of those involved in it. He ventures down into the audience, small yet brave, sweat-soaked and beautiful, and the hands of hordes of straight, virile dudes in baggy shorts and band shirts reach out from the crowd to touch him, to stroke him, to caress his inked skin, his shaved head, his cherubic face with its dark doe eyes. They whoop and yell and shout the lyrics with him — _fucking rock and roll man, fucking legendary, fuck yeah_ — and not a single one of them will admit it, but all of them, without exception, have imagined fucking him, or at the very least pressing their open mouths against his skin and tasting the magic that literally drips from every pore.

Brad is grateful for the guitar he holds in front of him. Mike is similarly grateful for his keyboard. And one night, in the post-show chaos, they tumble into a broom closet, breathless and bewildered, high on a mutual obsession, words unspoken, feelings held back to bursting, and they get each other off in the dusty darkness, mumbling the same man’s name.

Chester,  
Chester,  
Chester…


	2. Dave

Dave did not contribute much to the Reanimation remix album. That project was Mike’s, first and foremost. Dave sits down to listen to the finished product for the first time and when he reaches the end of the ‘X-Ecutioner Style’ track he stops, skips back, plays the track again.

A few of their songs are sampled in there, over the macho rap about automatic weapons and such. They’ve taken a sample of Chester’s voice, scratched it, tossed it in like punctuation. “Ah ah, AAH, ahh…” In the absence of female collaborators, Chester is there to provide the note of sweetness. The drop of honey on the tip of the tongue. For some reason, it gives Dave goosebumps.

He plays the track again. And again, skipping forward to the 46-second mark. And again at 56 seconds. And again. “Ah ah, AHH, ahh…”

He wonders what the hell he’s doing, why he's frustrated by all the other layers of the track, wishing he could strip them away and just listen to that one tiny sound, over and over.

An image starts to form in his head each time he hears the sample, and the image gets clearer and clearer until he realises with a jolt of horror that he is, in fact, fantasising about Chester in the throes of passion, throwing his head back, alabaster skin glistening, “Ah ah, AHH, ahh…”, and Dave yanks the earphones out of his ears, shuts down the computer and decides to take a walk outside.

Dave Farrell. He’s open-minded, liberal, young and cool, but he’s also a devout Christian and he makes sure to thank God in every album dedication. He is tolerant and accepting of others’ differences and diversions from the paths he has chosen, but still holds his own traditional religious values close to his heart. He keeps his faith for the most part to himself, but it’s the core of his life and he weaves his world around it.

Wedded before God, faithful and pure. Linsey is the love of his life. He will never betray her in action or thought. He will never stray from the straight, straight, painfully straight and narrow. He has never wanted to.

Never.

He walks into his hotel room a few days later to find that Chester has accidentally claimed it for himself, his clothes and shoes everywhere, and Chester himself lying face down on the bed in his underwear, fast asleep. He is a china doll. The eyelashes. The pretty lips. The perfect shape of his skull. “Ah ah, AHH, ahh…”

Never.

Chester is a man. A straight man. He has a man’s body and a man’s voice. He has a man’s mind. Is there such a thing? There are all different types of men. Some of them are gay. There is nothing gay about Chester, but at the same time, there is everything gay about Chester. Is that what sets him apart here? Is it his ambiguous sexuality? Is it his gender identity? How does he really see himself? What does it mean, to be a man?

Dave is confused about everything. He has never given much thought to these tricky concepts. They just haven’t ever been all that important in his world of by-the-book hetero conventionalism. But now he’s confused, in part by the fact that he has found himself standing alongside the bed, his hand outstretched, his fingertips inches away from Chester’s porcelain shoulder.

Chester is light and laughter. He is a vortex of energy with a fragile vulnerability that shows on the surface when he is still and quiet. He needs to be protected. He needs strong arms to embrace him, to keep him safe from the dangers of this ruthless world. He needs…

No.

Never.

Dave withdraws his hand, withdraws himself from the scene, locates the unoccupied room, lies down fully clothed on the bed to listen to some music and get his mind into a safer place.

But he finds himself scrolling through his own band’s catalogue and playing track eight of Reanimation.

“Ah ah, AHH, ahh…”


	3. Rob

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you don’t recognise it, every word of dialogue from the MTV Homebase interview used in this chapter is real. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rD7AVGiisk ... Relevant extract starts at 4:36.) The Papercut video had not come out when this interview happened, but I’m writing as if it had… Artistic license!

Rob was slipping up right from the start. But you know, it’s fine, it’s funny, it’s the twenty-first century now, and you can totally get away with gaying it up a bit every now and then, without anyone actually thinking you’re gay, and even if they do, like, whatever, you know, homophobia isn’t cool these days. I mean, Chester gets away with gaying it up a lot and he’s rapidly becoming one of biggest and most widely respected frontmen in the world. It’s not holding him back at all, so what does it matter if the rest of them do it? A tongue-in-cheek interview comment here, a mid-show cuddle there… Mike is all over that shit, and the fans fucking love it.

So, even though Rob’s slips aren’t, for the most part, intentional, he isn’t particularly worried about them. They’re nothing compared to Mike’s innuendos and touching and gratuitous staring, and Rob’s the quiet guy anyway — loud on the drums but withdrawn in every other context — so nobody is paying all that much attention to him; they’re all too distracted by Chester, which suits Rob just fine. He’s distracted by Chester too.

In Rob’s opinion, the footage that best captures the essence of Chester is from the end of the Papercut video where, despite his grungy clothes and his red mohawk, he looks like a magical fey being, dragonflies all around him and his eyes lit up with innocent curiosity and dark knowledge at the same time as he inspects one of the iridescent green insects that has settled on his finger. The light reflects off his glasses. His labret perfectly encircles his full, soft lower lip. He looks like a wayward fairy prince. He’s so beautiful. Rob’s not afraid to admit this. Rob is fully aware that Chester’s strange beauty is one of the engines of his band’s success.

He does an interview with Chester for MTV Homebase. They’re asked what it’s like, being in a band with one another. Chester goes first.

“Well, Rob is um… is a real genuine person, you know, um, he’s got a big heart…” He lays it on thick, complimenting Rob’s skills on the drums while Rob sits, processing, trying to stay focussed, trying not to think about Chester and the dragonflies, and when it’s his turn, Chester looks at him and says “Better be careful, pal”, following it up with one of those little-boy laughs that scrambles everything Rob had been preparing in his mind. He feels a sudden urge to be witty and unpredictable, two things that certainly aren’t part of his regular modus operandi.

“First of all, he’s beautiful…” says Rob, lifting his hand to stroke the back of Chester’s head, and Chester, never one to baulk at physical affection, gives a little purr and closes his eyes and tilts his head against Rob’s fingers. Rob snatches his hand away, his face flushing, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest.

That was too far. Why the fuck did I just do that?

“Uh Chester is— Chester is also a great guy, I love— I love being in a band with him…”

“Thank you, Rob,” says Chester, smiling and touching Rob’s shoulder once the compliments have been concluded. “Very nice.” He laughs again — that bubbly, naughty little elf laugh that fucks Rob up so much he can barely concentrate.

In the van on the way back to the hotel afterwards, Chester reaches out and strokes his fingers over Rob’s short, dark hair and says, mimicking the drummer’s voice, “First of all, he’s beautiful…”, and Rob feels as though the van is free-falling off a cliff, but he grins and Chester does that fucking laugh of his again and Rob wonders what the other guys will say when they see the Homebase interview.

“How did it go?” Dave asks later on, pulling a chair up alongside Rob in the hotel dining room. He’s got himself a milky coffee. Rob’s coffee is black.

“Fine,” says Rob. “I think. I hope. I was a bit awkward.”

“You’re the drummer; you’re allowed to be awkward,” says Dave.

Rob is silent for a moment. Rob is often silent, but the quality of this silence is different, and Dave narrows his eyes.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” says Rob. “It’s just that I always seem to say stupid stuff when Chester’s around.”

Now it’s Dave’s turn to be silent. Rob looks up at him and Dave looks down into his coffee. When he looks back up at Rob, Rob quickly looks away across the dining room at nothing, at everything. Then, finally, he turns back to Dave and says “Do you ever sometimes forget that Chester’s a guy?”

Dave lets out a snort of laughter and Rob blushes and rubs the back of his neck.

“I mean…” he soldiers on, determined to make his point. He suspects that Dave understands some of what he’s feeling, and he wants to confirm this common ground. “I mean, I know he’s a guy but… Just something about the way he is sometimes makes me almost… like… kind of…”

Dave smiles slightly. “You find yourself flirting with him? Trying to impress him or make him laugh?”

“Yeah,” says Rob, and suddenly imagines Chester sitting on a leafy throne in some sort of woodland palace, dragonflies flitting all around him, laughing appreciatively as Rob, his court jester, tries to entertain him. “Something like that.”

“And then when you succeed, you feel great for a moment, but then you feel weird because, you know, he’s one of the guys.”

“Yeah,” says Rob again. “You have the same experience?”

“No,” says Dave, sitting up straight and clearing his throat. “I don’t. But I think Mike does.”

“Oh,” says Rob, disappointed. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

Before the show that night, in the huddle, Chester is anxious. He’s recently been unwell and it’s his first performance in a while.

“I’m sorry if I fuck anything up,” he keeps saying. “I mean, I think it will be fine, but if I fuck it up, I’m really sorry.”

He and Rob have their arms around each others’ backs and Rob is being bumped around by Chester’s constant nervous bouncing. Chester is wearing a thin vest that he’ll probably shed ten minutes into the show, and despite the coolness of the night, he is feverishly warm to the touch. He always seems to radiate twice as much heat as anyone else.

“You’ll be fine,” says Rob. The huddle breaks up, but he keeps his arm around Chester as they drift towards the stage. “They’ll still love you no matter what you do.”

“But will you still love me no matter what I do?” says Chester, grinning up at him. He has that cheeky, flirty look on his face. The backstage lights glint off his lip ring.

Rob’s slip-up at the Homebase interview has given Chester ideas. He’s playing with Rob and Rob knows it. And Rob loves it. And Rob decides to play along. He’s the quiet one, but that doesn’t mean he has to be the boring one. He wants Chester to know this.

“Of course I’ll still love you, my beautiful Chazzy Chaz,” he says, and presses his lips casually to Chester’s temple, stroking him gently on the back of his head, just like he did at the interview, before he separates himself from the smaller man and heads off towards the others without a backwards glance. Rob knows that Chester is standing still now because his long shadow is not keeping up anymore, and he can sense Chester’s eyes burning holes into him.

Rob feels like he’s back in high school having just had a successful exchange with a girl he has a crush on.

He feels like his chest is full of butterflies. Or, rather, dragonflies.


	4. Joe & others

Joe takes pride in his role as music video director. He’s earned the right to make independent decisions about this aspect of the band’s creative output, and it’s a right he guards fiercely. If ever Mike — and it usually is Mike — tries to interfere in any way, Joe stamps on his interference swiftly and ruthlessly. Mike’s getting used to that by now. He doesn’t bother challenging Joe very often these days. But Joe knows that he’s frustrated about the treatment for their upcoming music video for ‘Shadow of the Day’. Conceptually, they’re all on board with it — it’s dark and tense and full of action — but Joe hasn’t included any band footage. It’s just going to be Chester, and Chester alone, for the entire video.

“Right, so, you’re in the bed,” says Joe, and Chester moves towards it. “You need to take your clothes off,” says Joe. “You don’t sleep in your clothes.”

Chester’s eyebrow pops up. “All of them?”

Joe shrugs. “Use your discretion.”

Chester strips down to his underpants and gets into the bed, pulling the duvet up to his chin.

“No,” says Joe. “Move the duvet down.”

Chester moves it down slightly, exposing his shoulders.

“No,” says Joe, getting up from his director’s chair and arranging the duvet so that the top half of Chester’s body is uncovered. “Okay,” he says, stepping out of the shot. “Now pretend you’re sleeping.”

Chester wriggles a little from side to side, making himself comfortable. He sinks back into the pillows, throws one arm up above his head and closes his eyes, allowing his face to relax into peacefulness.

“And action.”

 

***

 

Joseph Hahn is not sexually attracted to Chester Bennington, but he recognises the fact that a lot of people, of various gender identities and sexualities, most definitely are. Joe knows how to capture Chester’s unique beauty on film, for consumption by the masses. He capitalises on it, and it works for the band. Chester doesn’t seem to mind, the fans love it, the videos fly up the charts, the albums sell. It’s all good.

Joe sees the look that passes between Mike and Brad after they’ve watched the ‘Shadow of the Day’ video for the first time. He notices the way that Rob engineers the huddles so that he can put his arm around Chester’s back. He hears the repressed longing in Dave’s voice when he speaks to the singer. Joe has always been an observer more than a participator, and he’s good at it. He notices things. He interprets them. He keeps his observations to himself. He knows that his bandmates are infatuated with Chester but that, in addition to this, they love him as a brother, care for him as a friend, respect him as an artist and as a human being. Their physical and emotional attraction to him is, for the most part, tempered by rational thought and an understanding of appropriate codes of conduct. The same, however, cannot be said of some members of the public, or of their music industry peers, and the more Joe realises this, the more intensely he feels a dark sense of guilt about his role in the marketing of Chester as a consumable object.

Shortly after the release of their new video, they’re on the line-up of a big mixed festival with a bunch of other bands and performers, and they’re going out partying almost every night. Chester is popular with everyone, from the rockers to the hip-hoppers, and he’s often the centre of attention, while Joe sits on the outskirts, watching, sensitive to each and every false note in the apparent social harmony.

He hears some of Mike’s hip-hop friends refer to Chester using a homophobic slur, and Mike doesn’t call them out for it. He hears the lead singer of another band refer to Chester using female pronouns, calling him “Chestina”, and everyone laughs.

He watches a band of big, brash guys drinking with Chester, making crass jokes, teasing him for being “an underwear model” in the new music video, pushing him around a bit. Their words and actions are heavy with toxic masculinity, liberally applied in an attempt to disguise a powerful, secret lust that most of them haven’t even admitted to themselves. They like Chester — they more than like him — and Chester is smiling and laughing and playing along, merrily slopping Jack and Coke all over himself, but there are moments here and there — those rare moments when all eyes are not upon him — that the ghost of an expression passes across his face, and he looks haunted.

A lesser band’s drunken drummer whose name Joe doesn’t know makes a dick joke at Chester’s expense and grabs Chester right between the legs with his massive hairy hand. Chester flips the joke around and has everyone in stitches, but shortly after that, he excuses himself, and Joe sees him stumble out the back door of the club they’re in.

After a few minutes, Joe follows, and finds him in the parking lot, sitting on a crate and smoking in the cold.

“Hey Chester,” says Joe.

“Hey Joe,” says Chester, and hiccups. He’s drunk. Not blind drunk, but drunk enough.

Joe sits down on the crate next to Chester and doesn’t say anything. Joe is not a big talker, so there’s nothing unusual about this, and the silence is comfortable between them as Chester draws in lungfuls of smoke and blows them out into the gathering darkness, his face cloudy, his skin prickled with goosebumps in the chill of the evening.

“Can I tell you something,” says Joe, and somehow it isn’t a question.

“Yeah,” says Chester.

“You’re better than all of them,” says Joe. “Every single one of them.”

“What do you mean?” asks Chester. “Better than who? Better in what way?”

“As a person,” says Joe, touching his fingertips to his own forehead and then his heart and then shrugging. “You’re just better than them. I hope you know that.”

Chester looks at him, laughs, shakes his head and says “Thanks, Joe.”

The cigarette is dead and he flicks it away into some trash-strewn bushes and then rests his head on Joe’s shoulder for a while.

They rejoin the party, which is heaving now, and as soon as they enter the room, Joe sees the multitude of hungry eyes finding Chester, tracking him as he moves into the crowd. Joe sees that drummer approaching, eyes glazed with booze and pot and whatever else he’s been partaking in, and Joe puts his soft body between Chester and this unpleasant man, turns his head to catch Chester’s eyes — Chester’s bright, dark eyes — and there’s a subtle tilt of the head, an imperceptible nod, an understanding.

Chester slips away, ignoring the people who try to engage him in conversation, and heads for the bar. Joe follows. So does the drummer. Chester doesn’t realise this, but Joe does, and he stops, swivels to face the man whose name he doesn’t know. The man tries to move past him, past the chubby Asian guy of no consequence, the invisible DJ, the space-filler, wallpaper, the guy who is nothing but a minor obstacle that can be overcome with a careless shove.

“Dude,” says Joe. “Leave him alone.”

The guy stops, blinks as though Joe has literally just materialised out of thin air in front of him. He laughs.

“The fuck are you? The fuck are you talking about?”

“Leave him alone.”

“Why? You got a crush on him or some shit?”

“No.”

“Bunch of fucking faggots.”

Joe’s fist connects solidly with the drummer’s face and he hits the ground like a sack of potatoes.

 

***

 

Chester dabs diluted antiseptic liquid onto Joe’s knuckles before padding them with gauze and wrapping a bandage around his hand.

“You got him in the teeth,” he says.

“I’m probably going to get a disease now. His mouth was gross.”

“You’ll be fine,” says Chester, patting Joe’s bandaged hand. “You’re the great Mister Hahn.”

“I’m not that great,” says Joe.

“ _Let’s hear it for the great Mister Hahn_ ,” says Chester, mimicking the voice on ‘Cure for the Itch’. He’s still a bit drunk and a bit sad and suddenly very tired. “ _Wicky wacky woo_ ,” he yawns, rubbing his eyes. “ _All right now, wasn’t that fun? Let’s try something else_ …” And he moves his face right up to Joe’s, their lips almost touching.

“What are you doing, Chester?” asks Joe.

Chester shrugs.

“I don’t see you in that way,” says Joe.

“I know,” says Chester. “That’s why I want to kiss you.”

Joe considers this for a moment and then decides _yes, okay, that’s fine, perhaps I owe him this, it’s the least I can do_ , and he closes the space between them.


	5. Mike & Brad (again)

In the early days of the band, the music media are bitter and cynical about Linkin Park’s sudden success, and relentlessly stoke the fire under the bullshit idea that they are manufactured — some sort of twee metal boyband. Chester reads the articles and listens to the radio and feels it burning him, like he’s just chugged a cup of sulphuric acid.

_Pretty boy … Baby face … A dream come true for wannabe-edgy prepubescent girls everywhere … Just look at him … Out of a press mould … Just look at him … Born to sell posters … Gotta give it to them them, Jeff, they’re fucking rolling in it, dude … Cash cow, holy fuck … Just imagine all the teenage girls getting off on that right now … Apparently rock n’ roll doesn’t need real men anymore … Hah … Apparently rock n’ roll doesn’t need rock n’ roll anymore, either, amiright! … Hah, Good one, Darren … Ooookay, next up we’ve got some proper music by some proper men with actual dicks…_

Chester slams his fist into a brick wall and instantly feels better. Still terrible — but better than before. At least now he can blame the tears in his eyes on the fact that he has no skin on his knuckles.

He has worked his fucking ass off to get here. He's sacrificed everything. His lyrics aren't just words that fit over melodies; he's got two decades of actual hell under his belt, and he's been shredding his throat, screaming it out, baring his blackened and beaten soul for everyone to hear and see, but apparently he's still not authentic enough for them.

He's not enough. He's never enough. He's never been enough for anyone.

“What the fuck did you do to your hand, bro?”

Mike’s on the couch. He doesn’t get up when Chester walks in, but he sits up straighter and leans forward. Brad shambles over to see what’s going on.

“I fell,” says Chester.

Brad raises an eyebrow.

“I punched a wall,” says Chester.

Brad’s eyebrow returns to neutral.

“I don’t blame you,” he says. “Fucking bullshit.”

He’s been reading the magazines too.

“Did you know,” says Chester, “that I got beaten up and pissed on throughout junior high because everyone said I was an ugly little freak?”

“No, I didn’t know that,” says Brad, shaking his head, and Mike shakes his head too.

“So for the first part of my life I get picked on for being a rat boy, and now apparently I’m a pretty boy and I’m getting picked on for that too.”

“Seems totally fucking unfair to me,” says Mike.

“Yeah,” says Chester. “It does. Who the fuck are these journalists? Did they even look at my damn face while they were writing this shit? They must’ve been looking at someone else. I don’t fucking get it.”

Chester Bennington doesn’t fucking get it.

But Mike and Brad do.

They look at each other for a moment — _broom closet, oh god, broom closet, Chester, Chester, Chester_ — and then they look at Chester, and he’s crying a little bit, prodding the shredded skin on his hand — and then they look back at each other…

_Can we touch him? Can we hold him? Can we make him feel better?_

Two pairs of arm close around Chester from the front and the back and he doesn’t react; he just keeps sniffling.

“They’re assholes, Ches,” says Brad, his breath warm on the back of Chester's neck.

“Assholes,” Mike echoes. “They’re wrong about everything.”

“Except for one thing,” says Brad.

“Yeah,” says Mike. “Except for one thing.”

Chester looks up, his eyes red, his mind spinning as Brad rests his head against the back of his shoulder and Mike carefully takes his injured hand and lifts it up to his mouth.


	6. Brad & Mike (Chester POV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: drugs, abuse, trauma, mental illness, disturbing stream-of-consciousness weirdness

_But I’m not— I’m not— have you seen my face? have you seen me? Rat boy, rat boy, zero-body-fat boy, skin-and-bones-that-crack boy, crack boy, crack boy…_

Brad’s hands are moving along my ribcage, fingertips feeling out the spaces between the bones through the T-shirt I’m wearing and Mike has his lips a millimetre away from my knuckles and his breath tingles on the broken skin.

_Your father never loved you and no-one ever will. Your mother was a junkie and you’re a junkie, just like her. But she wasn’t— but she isn’t— But you are, aren’t you Chester? You are. You are._

I am. I am. Something. I am not sure what I am. I am covered in goosebumps. I am warm. Lips on my neck, lips on my hand, softly, softly.

_You won’t tell anyone will you Chester? They wouldn’t understand anyway. We’re just playing. You wouldn’t want anyone to think you were gay. Gay! Gaygaygaygaygaaaay. So fucking gay. Look at your arms. Skinnier than a girl’s arms. Even sounds like a girl. Even walks like a girl. Even looks like a girl. A girl is bad thing to be. Gay is a bad thing to be. You are a bad thing to be, Chester. You are a bad thing to be._

I am not a girl. I am not gay. But I am also not a guy in the guy sense of the word guy. And I am not straight. What am I? I am almost horizontal now. I am on the couch. I’m sober, but I’m beginning to realise that they aren’t. Their inhibitions have been melted away by something more expensive than Jack. I can smell it, but I can’t identify it. Even now, after all these years and all this money, I can only identify Jack.

_Jack and coke, coca cola, cocaine. Getting fucked by Jack and all the girls — Molly, Lucy, Mary Jane, Crystal, Angel, fuckmybrain. Nosebleed, cottonmouth, in a ditch, pissed myself. Cold, dirty, ugly, worthless, used, bruised, abused—_

But no. Warm and dry. What is this? I’ve allowed it to happen. I’ve encouraged it. I said yes. Did I mean to?

I’m lying against Brad, my back against his chest, his skinny legs on either side of me, and I am cradled by one arm, the hand on my stomach, while the other one plays in patterns on my scalp, and have I been crying this whole time? Mike is there in front of me, doing that thing that he does with his face when something’s wrong but he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Can he fix it? No. It cannot be fixed. I am a tainted meat mannequin. I am rotten to the core. If you cut away the rot there will be nothing left but bones.

These thoughts these feelings these memories are here to stay. A worm in the brain, chewing, chewing, chewing. If you look into my eyes you will see nothing. They are the holes in the apple. The dark tunnels into the rotten core.

And yet. Mike is leaning forward, looking me in the eyes and I feel a connection, like he can see me in there. It can’t be the worm. The worm is blind.

He swipes a fingertip along my cheek. “Chester,” he says, “Chester why do you hate yourself? How can you hate yourself when you’re so wonderful?”

What the everloving fuck? What sweet bullshit is this? I want to scoff. I want to laugh. But look at his face. Look at his lovely face. And Brad. Brad would never go this far for a sick joke. Do I not know them? Why do I… Why do I… Why do I want to trust them?

Is it because my brain is actually damaged? I fried it. I salted it like a slug with the drugs. My brain is fucked. I am fucked. Why do I want this? Why do I want this to be real?

Is it real?

I must’ve asked the question out loud, because Brad answers it, with his lips against my ear. “It’s real.”

But what is “it”? We never defined “it”.

Mike is straddled across my legs and Brad’s legs, keeping most of his weight on his calves so that he doesn’t snap all the skinny legs in half like dry twigs. Considerate.

He runs his fingertip along my nose. My big weird nose. My out of proportion nose that sticks out of the middle of my stupid fucking face like a beacon. He’s smiling. It’s not a mocking smile. It’s not a smirk or a jeer or a leer or a sneer, and I say some words. They come out of me like vomit. And among them is another question.

“Why?”

“Because we love you and you’re beautiful and sad.”

Maybe I can just pretend. Maybe I can take these words and snort them up my nostrils. Maybe I can inhale these words like fumes. Maybe I can inject these words into the crook of my arm, let them dissolve on my tongue, let them fill my lungs with smoke.

I realise I have been rigid with tension and I let the drugwords enter my bloodstream and melt into my muscles and I slacken and I say “okay, okay, okay” and I close my eyes and turn my head and find Brad’s lips and his nose and I think and I say “god, your nose is just as fucking big and awkward as my nose” and I laugh and he laughs and Mike nuzzles his way in from the side even though there really isn’t room for another nose, even a reasonably sized one like his, but we manage, we manage, even though kisses were meant for two, not for three, we manage.

Beards and lips, teeth and tongues. The lip-ring is the star of the show. We’re all laughing so much that it’s not even sexual. I don’t even have a boner. Oh wait. No. I do.

And there are all these hands everywhere and none of them are pulling me or pushing me or hitting me or forcing me or shoving me against a locker or into a urinal or down a flight of stairs or onto a bed or out of the house or onto the street or into the dark or out of a life.

And somehow we’re all tangled together and we’ve tumbled off the couch, taking the big, rectangular cushions with us and both of them are on top of me, but gently, gently, hovering, smiling when I smile, laughing when I laugh, and I reach for them and pull them close, crushing myself into the cushions with their warm, solid bodies, and, fuck it, I feel beautiful, I am beautiful, I am whole, I am not a bad thing to be, I am enough.

I am enough.


	7. Chester's bodyguard POV

It was a pretty big deal, getting this gig. Fucking big band, even if I don’t really get their music. Like it’s not bad, and Shinoda’s got bars, you know, but it’s all over the place and I don’t know if I’d actually, like, blast it in the car on my way to a party or something. But they got mad energy, I’ll give them that, especially the one I’m meant to be watching.

I thought, okay, rock star front man, ego the size of Texas, probably a bit of a dick, you know, but it turns out he’s like this tiny little dude who always says please and thank you, and high-fives the roadies and the kitchen staff, and it makes my job easier in some ways, sure, but in other ways it’s a fucking nightmare, because he just puts himself out there all the time and people want to eat him alive.

I gotta be conspicuous and inconspicuous at the same time; like let him get on with whatever he’s doing and not draw attention to myself but they gotta know I’m there so they don’t fuck with him too much. I could go in there and pick him up by the scruff of his neck like a kitten and haul him out, but I told him, “Bennington, I’m not going to move in and pull them off you unless you tell me to, yeah? Just give me the look.”

But he never gives me the look. He’ll be signing shit out on the street and the fucking hands are going everywhere – I’m talking girl hands, guy hands, young dudes and middle-aged soccer moms – I swear to god, they’re up in front reaching in between the barriers and hard-core fondling this little motherfucker, and he just takes it. Doesn’t faze him.

Except for this one night. It was post-show at a festival and he was greeting fans, but not an official thing. All the other guys had fucked off to shower and change but of course Bennington is out there, shaking hands through the chain-link fence and signing shit with this sharpie – I swear he keeps a sharpie on him at all times – and anyway, I’m watching him and I see him go all stiff for a moment and he pulls back and turns and catches my eye and I step forward to make myself more obvious.

I see a bunch of those white boys, you know the type, ugly drunk with rape faces, right up against the fence and one of them is laughing, and it’s not a good sort of laugh. So Bennington steps back and I say “Everything okay?” and he’s like “Yeah, yeah”, but I can see he’s not okay. He starts walking away without his usual goodbyes; no smiles, no waves, no thank yous, none of that shit. And I following him back into the venue.

He’s walking quickly, like he’s trying to put distance between us. I think he’s going to the changing rooms and showers, you know, where the other guys are, but then he ducks down this random corridor and I’m like “Bro, where you going?” and he’s like “Not now, not now”, trying to make me fuck off, but it’s my job, man. It’s a festival venue and there are random people all over the fucking place, so I’m tailing him and he goes into the men’s room and I follow him in there and he locks himself in a cubicle.

He says to me, he says “Dude, I need to shit! Fuck off!” so I say “Okay”, but I’ve got a feeling, you know. It’s part of my job, to have intuition. So I make footstep noises and I open the door and let it close but I stay in there, still and quiet, just to listen, just to be sure.

And part of me is hoping he’ll just take a fucking dump, you know, but instead I hear him sniffling and then sobbing and then it’s like full-on melt-down and he sounds like he’s choking, he’s crying so hard and I’m just like _what the fuuuuck_. It’s not my place to get involved in this shit, you know; I’m just the muscle. But I’m there all the time, so I get a feeling for these people, I give a shit about them, even this skinny-ass white boy, and I’m thinking, do I go in there? Is he gonna start cutting himself or some shit? I don’t get what makes these dudes tick, so how do I know?

Well, I go up to the cubicle and I say, “Bennington, bro, what’s the matter?” and he goes real quiet. Like I expected him to cuss me out at the very least, but no, he goes dead quiet and then I freak out and shoulder the door in — it’s like cardboard, it wasn’t difficult — and he’s sitting there with his pants around his ankles, so basically naked, because this fucking dude never wears a shirt, and his eyes are all red and puffy and he’s just looking at me and I get this totally weird feeling all of a sudden, like I’m a goddamn knight in shining armour and I gotta rescue this… this damsel, you know.

It’s weird, like... like... I can’t explain it. I wanted to go out and find those dudes. I didn’t even know what they said to him, at this point, but I wanted to go out there anyway, guns blazing and just fuck them up. Get one of them by the hair and shove his face in the dirt and just fucking whoop his ass in front of all his friends and do one of those beatings with a rhythm, you know? One word for every punch to the face. _Don’t! You! Ever! Do! That! Again!_ Like your mama gives you. Just really shame him. But for what though? Like I said, I didn’t even know what they did to get Bennington so fucked up.

But anyway, so, he pulls up his pants and just walks past me and starts rinsing his face, and I’m still feeling all kinds of ways, and I turn and see my own face in the mirror and I’m like… I’m like…

I feel like I’ve overstepped, so I say “Look, man, I’m sorry bro”, and he turns to me and he says, “You ever killed a man?” and I’m suddenly thinking _Yeah, yeah, I’ll kill a man for you, little bro_ , because his eyes are just fucking huge right then and his hands are like trembling and I want to protect him, you know, because… I mean, it’s my job, no other reason…

But I’ve never killed a man and wouldn’t lie about shit like that, so I say “No, bro, I’ve never killed a man.” And he nods and he says, “Me neither. Obviously.” And I’m like, “Why obviously?” because I think he’s putting himself down for being small and speccy. He just laughs. He seems better then, and I’m getting used to overstepping by this point, so I just come right out and ask him: “What happened out there, bro? What did they say to you?” He looks at me for a bit, kind of like he’s seeing me for the first time, like he’s deciding whether to open up to me. Now I know this is an emotional kinda guy. I’ve seen him, I’ve heard him, and right then I’m thinking, shit, maybe I’m getting myself in too deep here.

“It wasn’t one of our fans,” he says. “Some of those dudes were here for other bands.” I’m thinking that’s it, that’s all he’s going to tell me, like maybe the guy just slagged off the band or something, but then he says, “He put his hand out and I shook it and he leaned close and said ‘I hope you get raped in the ass again’.”

Daaaamn. Okay. So I say, “Shit bro, that’s not cool, bro”, and I start thinking about my grampy when he came back from ’Nam and how fucked up he was and the things that would set him off. I just want to make this guy feel safe, man, you know, like, I can stop him from getting hurt physically, but I can’t stop people from being assholes, and there’s obviously some dark shit going on up there, but I’m just like, not qualified…

He smiles at me anyway, like a _thanks-for-trying_ sort of a smile, and we walk out and head to the changing rooms, and just before he goes in he turns to me and gives me a hug. For real. A fucking hug. And I’m standing there with my arms around this weird little dude thinking _this was so not part of my job description_ but I'm hugging back and he's so little and so warm and I swear, I swear… my heart…


	8. Mike POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note rating change. Explicit content in this chapter.

He stumbles into my room with an empty Corona bottle in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other, a poorly rinsed puke-stain on the front of his vest and sweat patches under his arms. His hair is all filthy and fucked up and his glasses are smudged and I can smell him from the doorway. He’s been out partying all day. We have very different ideas about the value of a day off.

“Chester,” I say. “Wrong room.”

He advances on me. “Or is it the right room?” he says. “Huh, Mike? I think it’s the right room.” He puts his tongue out and twiddles his lip ring.

“Look at the state of you,” I say.

He comes up short then, peering down at his vest and his face drops and I feel horrible. He looks so hurt. My heart twists in my chest. I’m about to apologise, but then he says “sorry”, and turns to leave. He doesn’t get far. His pants have slipped down his skinny hips and they’re pooling around his shoes; he trips on them and goes down hard onto his knees. The Corona bottle cracks under his hand and he yelps in pain.

And so we find ourselves in my bathroom with Chester sitting on the side of the tub while I clean his hand with surgical spirits. It’s only superficial; barely even bleeding. He won’t need stitches, thankfully.

Last time, it was the knuckles. This time it’s the palm. Same hand. I wonder if he’s thinking this thought too. I run him a bath and help him into it, trying not to look at him, trying to focus on how gross he is right now rather than the smooth plane of his stomach, the cute swell of his ass, the lickable buds of his nipples.

I put his smelly clothes into a plastic bag and fetch him a big glass of water. I’ve turned away for a just moment but he’s already fallen asleep in the tub and I’m just standing there, looking down at him. Why does he have to do this to me? I don’t want him to drown, so I wake him up, and for some reason I do this by running my fingers through his hair. Bleach blond with dark roots. It needs a cut and dye. And a wash. He stirs and looks up.

“Here,” I say, handing him the water, and he sits up and drinks it all, swilling it around his mouth to rise out the taste of booze and vomit. He looks ashamed. He’s all grubby and beat up, with bruises starting to blossom on his knees now, and an assortment of cuts and scrapes on his body. He’s clumsy, even when he’s sober, but especially when he’s not.

The next thing I know, I’m crouching down, squeezing a blob of shampoo into my hand and rubbing it into his hair. I tell myself it’s because he’s just so filthy and such a mess that he needs all the help he can get. I’m helping him. I’m being a good friend. I’m trying really hard to keep my mind away from the blurry, drunken memories of that night with him and Brad and the couch, but I can remember so clearly the taste of his lips and the taste of his skin and the taste of his blood when I put his injured hand to my mouth.

He lets me wash his hair, and I wash it properly, lathering it up and really working the suds in, massaging his scalp like they do at the hair salon, because I know how much I love it when they do that to me, how good it feels. He looks awful and he probably feels awful, so maybe this will help. At the very least, he’ll smell better afterwards. I’m at the head of the tub, directly behind him, and I see him tremble slightly as my fingers move along the prominent curve of his skull and onto his neck. His bony back and shoulders come out in goosebumps. Sometimes they do a neck and shoulder massage at the salon too, if you’re lucky. I think maybe he’d benefit from a bit of that, so I start rubbing his skin firmly with my soapy fingers and he trembles again and makes a little sound.

“I’m cold,” he says, wrapping his wet arms around himself. I press gently on the tops of his shoulders until he slides down, submerging himself up to his chin, and then further, until his hair is underwater too, and only his face is sticking out, his big brown eyes staring up at me as I run my fingers through his hair, rinsing the shampoo out of it. It feels soft and clean now. The water is going cloudy from the soap and the dirt. He’s watching me. I’m keeping my face neutral even though I’m not feeling neutral at all. I never feel neutral around him, and I guess he knows it. He lifts his head up so that his ears are above the water, pink from the steaming warmth of it. I can speak to him now.

“Chester,” I say. “Why did you come to my room?”

“Who else would be willing to wash my hair so nicely?” he says.

“I’m being serious,” I say.

“So am I,” he replies.

He hauls himself into a sitting position once again, water sloshing everywhere, and I think maybe he wants to get out, so I start to stand, to fetch him a towel, but he grabs a handful of my shirt and pulls me close and I almost lose my balance and fall into the tub with him. I slump down onto my knees, his hand tugs at my shirt and he pulls himself up onto his knees so that we’re face to face. He’s getting bathwater all over me. I haven’t even managed to say anything about this before he jerks me closer, throws a dripping arm around me and kisses me, his clenched hand releasing my shirt to grip the edge of the bathtub to prevent himself from slipping…

…but he slips anyway, one of his bruised knees skidding out to the side under the soapy water. I catch him around the middle, holding the weight of him against myself and we’re still kissing, somehow. I don’t know why. Water is running in rivulets from his hair down his face and his lips are wet and slippery like the rest of him. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, or what I’m thinking, but he’s got his balance back and he’s pulling me, pulling me, and I’m kicking off my shoes and then reaching back to start working on my socks, but he’s pulling me harder now, so I give up and clamber, ungainly and utterly ridiculous in my clumsiness, into the bath, fully clothed. It’s not a decision, it’s a compulsion. I can’t think. I can only act.

The dirty water soaks me, weighing me down, and Chester’s grappling with me, pushing me onto my back, water slopping over the side of the tub in great, soapy waves and my hands are on him, everywhere, slippery, sliding along his back and over his ass and down the backs of his legs and up the front of them and, yes, between them, yes, I’m touching him, yes, again, yes, and finally he pulls his lips away and gasps and slips down so that he’s lying right against me, my arms trapped between us, and I’m thrashing slightly, and the water is sloshing about, threatening to cover my face and drown me. It gets into my mouth and nose, and I splutter and cough, and he shifts himself, sliding both hands to the back of my head and lifting my face safely clear of the water before putting his lips back against mine.

And instantly I’m at peace, his lips soothing the noise in my body and my mind for a moment. I’ve freed my arms from in between us and my hands are roaming over his back, slick smooth, tracing each bump of his spine, gliding over his ass again and cupping underneath it pulling him up, forward, closer.

What am I doing. What the fuck am I doing. The question drifts across my mind, but lazily — so lazily that it’s almost not a question at all. Chester drags his lip ring from side to side over my bottom lip and then tilts my face and glides his tongue straight into my mouth. What am I doing, oh god, whatamidoing, ohhh god, oh god, this is what I’m doing.

Oh god.

“This is why I came to your room,” he says, breaking the kiss.

“You’re drunk,” I say.

“Only a little bit,” he says. “And anyway. You were drunk last time.”

“I’m sober now,” I say, although I’m not sure why I say it. “I’m sober.”

“So you really do love me,” he says. “Sober Mike agrees with drunk Mike.”

Do I love him? Is that what this is?

One of us must’ve kicked the bathplug out because the water is draining away, leaving us in a wet heap. He’s not heavy. His weight is comfortable on top of me. I’m holding him and he’s nuzzling his face into my neck. We lie there in the bathtub for some time, soaking wet and silent.

“I’m so cold,” he says.

And so he is. He’s starting to shiver. With painstaking care, he pulls himself away from me and I release him from my arms, allowing him to clamber out of the tub and wobble weakly across the bathroom. He vanishes into the bedroom, leaving me alone on my back in the empty bath in my wet clothes.

I’m thinking about my life, my choices. Who am I? How did I get here? I don’t know, honestly. The thing is, when I’m with Chester, I still don’t know the answers to anything, but I also just don’t care. I don’t care about the answers or the questions. He lives in the moment, and when I’m with him, I find myself living in the moment too, doing stupid things like getting into the bath with my clothes on. When I’m with him, I’m so preoccupied with just appreciating the fact that he exists, and that I exist in the same place and time as him, that nothing else seems to matter. The moments that came before and the moments that will come after — they’re just… other moments. A jumble of good and bad. It doesn’t matter right now. Right now is what matters.

He comes back into the bathroom with a towel around himself and another towel in his hands and he stands next to tub, looking at me strangely.

“What are you doing?” he asks, even though I’m clearly not doing anything.

“Thinking,” I say.

“About what?” he asks.

“About you. And me. And life.”

“Deep,” he says. “I’ve put the kettle on. They’ve got three different kinds of herbal tea in the drawer. Come and get warm.”

I strip my sodden clothes off with difficulty and step out of the tub, and Chester wraps the towel around my body along with his arms and holds me like that for a minute. He smells clean now. He’s tried to dry his hair with the towel and it’s all fluffy and soft. He’s put on a bit of my deodorant too. I realise with a sharp burst of utter certainty that yes, I do love him. When we told him that, me and Brad, we were telling the truth. At least, I was. If Brad knew what was happening right now, he would die of jealous desperation, but I’m not going to tell him. Chester chose my room, not his.

We drink tea. We’re wrapped in towels. We’re sitting on the bed, leaning back on the big soft pillows. Chester puts his teacup down on the bedside table.

“I’m completely sober now,” he informs me. “I feel so good. It doesn’t seem fair. I don’t deserve to feel so good right now. Normally I would have a headache and be throwing up.”

“You’ve hydrated and had a relaxing bath,” I say to him. “If you look after yourself, you feel good. That’s how it works.”

“I didn’t look after myself,” he says. “You looked after me.”

I shrug. He shrugs back.

“Wanna have sex?” he asks.

I laugh and say, “Yeah, sure, why not,” and put my empty teacup down.

We’ve never had sex before, but we might as well have, and since the fully-clothed bathing experience, I feel a sense of peaceful disregard for fear, for shame, for doubt, for all of those things that would normally rise out of my consciousness and try to stop me from acting on impulse. They’ve been washed away. Sure, there are a few sirens going off in my brain, but only weakly in the distant corners, and their sound is fading beneath the joyful thumping of my heart.

He’s on me. His lips taste of tea. His tongue is soft and wet and playful. I let it venture into my mouth and then I push it back and delve into his mouth instead. Inside me, inside him, inside me, inside him. How are we going to do this? He’s wrapped both of his small hands around my dick and it feels like heaven. I want to be inside of him and I want him to be inside of me.

“How are we going to do this?” I ask the question out loud.

“However you like,” he replies.

“I don’t know what I like,” I say. “I like you.”

“Got lube?” he asks.

“Toiletries bag. On the desk.”

He gets up, finds the bag, rummages through it and returns triumphant with the little bottle of lube clutched in his fist like a precious artefact.

“I’m going to make love to you,” he says, and he sounds rather pleased with himself. “Roll over.”

I roll over onto my stomach and close my eyes, waiting. He eases himself down on top of me, resting his cheek against mine. I can feel his hard dick pressing up against my ass. It’s not too big. This should be fine. He runs his fingertips along my arms and all the hairs stand up on end. I open my eyes and watch them rise, watch the goosebumps forming on my skin. He shifts and starts to kiss his way down my spine, slowly, thoughtfully. Lip ring, fingertips, the tip of his nose.

He settles between my legs, pushing them apart with his hands and running those hands up the backs of my thighs and onto my ass. Everything tingles. I close my eyes again as spreads me open. No fear. No shame. No doubt. His tongue is soft and wet and playful down there too, and once again it ventures inside me. The warmth creeps through my body like treacle. I am incapacitated.

He probes me carefully, curiously, with a tentative finger. It feels strange, but not painful. My dick throbs, trapped between my stomach and the sheets. It’s okay. It feels good. He feels good. I can picture his face, bright with lust. I can feel his joy in the movement of his hand. Two fingers now, slow, but deep. It draws an unexpected shaky moan out of my mouth and he responds with an enthusiastic “mmm!” of agreement.

The fingers are withdrawn and I hear him pop the lube bottle open. He slathers me in the cold, slippery substance and I hiss at the feel of it, but he slides his fingers back in and rubs them back and forth and soon enough I’m warm again. Warm and wet and ready.

“Do it,” I say. “I want it.” And I do. I really do. My body is aching for it. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch; a cramp I can’t soothe. I feel heavy and desperate inside when he takes his fingers away. “Do it. Please…”

He guides himself into me bit by bit and I hold my breath. It hurts, but I don’t care. He steadies himself on one hand while the other hand draws patterns in the curve of my back.

“Mike,” he murmurs.

“How does it feel?” I groan, because I want to know, I need to know.

“It feels… god… it feels… nnngh…” he says and I laugh, and the tremors of the laughter ripple through me and into him and he gasps, collapsing against my back. “Ohhh god… Can I move?”

“Please,” I say. My voice is a breathy whisper. Fistfuls of pillowcase, eyelids full of stars.

One of his hands is on my hip, the other is on my shoulder, his lips are on my neck and he’s inside me, he’s inside me, he’s inside me. Back and forth, glide and burn. I’m murmuring words and they’re all fragments of his name. His weight is a wholesome comfort, pressing me down. It feels pure and good now; the pain is gone, but part of me wants it back. Part of me wants him primal.

I reach my hand back and find his head, find his hair, clean hair, still damp, tangle my fingers in it, pull, pull. He whimpers and I say “Chester… Chester, fuck me. Fuck me.”

And he does, his hand gripping harder on my hip, his forehead coming down onto my back as he speeds up, pushing himself harder, deeper, deeper, deeper. I open my legs wider, my flesh parting willingly. I’m not breathing. It’s okay.

“Mike…” he gasps. “Am I enough?”

“You’re more than enough,” I manage to say and he cries out, slamming himself into me like a man possessed.

And there it is, another new sensation, a button, trigger, detonator that coils my body like a spring. I writhe involuntarily, choking out his name, lights flickering and popping at the edge of my vision. He hits the spot three more times before I simply can’t continue. If I don’t come, I will die, and I’m not ready to die, so I come, shuddering, warmth spreading beneath me and he starts to sob against my back at the feeling of it, thrusting through the pulsing tightness. He reaches his own climax and I feel his teeth on my shoulder, not biting, just gripping me, the way a lioness holds a cub in her mouth.

In and out. Slide and scald. The heat is pure. A burning glow. He’s slowing down, shaking, trembling, sinking onto me with all of his weight, soothing his hands up my sides. I feel pure and whole with the rightness of it.

He’s been inside of me all along, only now it’s physical.

We lie in silence, breathing. He moves carefully, slipping out of me, slipping off the bed, slipping away. I close my eyes. I hear him in the bathroom, the water running. Cleaning himself up perhaps. He returns and I feel a warm washcloth between my legs. He’s gentle.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“There’s a bit of blood,” he says, and he sounds upset. “Just a little bit.”

“It’s okay,” I say.

He wipes me down and I roll over, keeping my eyes closed. The washcloth smooths along my stomach, cleaning me there too. I feel sleep pulling at me gently but persistently. He leaves again and when I hear his quiet footsteps padding back towards me, I open my eyes and he stops. We look at each other and he smiles, a blush creeping across his face.

“Come,” I say lifting my arms. “Sleep here.”

He slides in beside me, letting me spoon myself against his narrow back, enclosing him in my arms.

“I’m not in the wrong room,” he says, and he’s right. He was right all along. He always is.


	9. Jared Leto POV

There is no point in me putting on a show of false modesty and pretending I’m something that I’m not. That would be disingenuous and a bit gross, in my opinion. I’m self-aware, so I know what I am. And what I am is an uncommonly attractive man. I have enough people reminding me of this on a daily basis to be fairly confident of it as an objective and undeniable fact.

It’s useful, to be good-looking. Of course I do have those moments of self-doubt where I wonder how much of my success was determined by these big baby-blues rather than by my actual abilities. They’re only moments, though. They’re fleeting. Most of the time, I’m pretty confident about what I can do. I’m talented. I’m attractive. This combination of talent and looks means I don’t have to work very hard. And if I’m a bit of a douchebag for acknowledging these things so brazenly, then so be it.

I often think about attractiveness, as a concept, not only because I am attractive myself, but because I appreciate attractiveness in others. For a study in contrasts, I could mention another attractive man, lead singer of the headlining act we toured with a few weeks ago. I’m talking about Chester Bennington, of course. He’s attractive, but in a less obvious way. He’s not classically handsome like I am. His nose is too big, his ears stick out a bit, he’s got a sort of beaky, geeky vibe about him. The thing is though, it’s all part of his appeal. He’s funny-looking, but in a uniquely hot way, and I’ve been ruminating about this, because, as I said, I like to think about attractiveness, as a concept. The politics of it. The alchemy.

Unlike me, Chester doesn’t think he’s attractive. He’s obviously proud of his body; he’s worked on it a lot, and it can’t be easy, getting ripped when you’re naturally scrawny, so it’s not surprising that he spends a lot of time shirtless, with sweat running over these beautifully cut abs. But showing off your fitness is not the same thing as believing that you’re attractive. He doesn’t look in the mirror like I do and think “Well shit, I lucked out, didn’t I?” He puts himself down, and it’s not disingenuous; its honest self-effacement, probably the result of childhood bullying, which I know he suffered through, probably at the hands of people like me. And now, as a result of that, he seriously can’t see what everyone else sees.

And what does everyone else see? Now, this is the part that really fascinates me, because even though I myself can see it and feel it, I can’t quite put it into words. I find this infuriating sometimes, because I’m all about the words. I’ve watched him perform many times, and each time, I witness it — his special alchemy.

He descends into the crowd, and everyone who sees him knows that there is not another soul on God’s green earth who is more beautiful than he is. Everything else fades to grey. If I was standing there beside him wearing a rainbow-coloured sequin jacket, I would be as forgettable as any shop-floor mannequin. The thought is terrifying to me now, but in the moment I’m just like the rest of them: high and hot and hungry.

Everyone is in agreement. Every straight guy in the pit has a raging hard-on, every hand is reaching out for him, hoping to get even the slightest contact with his sweaty skin. He is always so sweaty. He’s the sweatiest singer I’ve ever encountered, because, unlike me, he works so fucking hard that he practically dissolves in the effort. He glistens and drips. You can see all these parched faces, desperate to quench their thirst with him. I’ve felt it. I’ve had it linger even after the lights have turned down.

I approached him in the dressing room once, after a show. He was towelling himself off. I wanted him. I wanted him so much that I must’ve been biting my lip and breathing through my nose — dilated pupils, obvious erection, the works. I had this thought sparking around in my head. It’s the imperfection. The imperfection is what makes him beautiful. He is so real that it’s unreal. I wanted to explore that. I always want everything, even the things I can’t have.

He was looking at me strangely with those impossibly brown eyes of his and I was inviting him back to our bus for a drink. I know he’s an alcoholic and he knows that I know. That didn’t stop me. I turned all of my tricks: the eyes, the smile, the voice, the hand raking back through the silky hair… It usually works on anyone, whether it’s a man or a woman or someone occupying another part of the spectrum. On the rare occasion that it doesn’t work, I’m not above employing a degree of skilful coercion.

I thought for a moment he was considering my proposal… but then Shinoda came in. I can tell by the way they look at each other that they’re fucking, so obviously he was the last person I needed to see right then. I excused myself.

On my way to the bus, I found an eager groupie and took her back with me, fucked her to get my frustration out and then chased her away. I could tell she was desperate to enjoy the experience, and she was fighting her disappointment so hard afterwards that I almost laughed. She’d probably thought that her perky tits and smooth stomach and glossy tresses and freshly waxed nether regions were everything I could possibly want in a fan, but I wasn’t in the mood for all that. Not right then. I wanted vigorous tightness and downy thighs, pain-sweat and gritted teeth, a muscular chest and strong arms with flames curling up from the wrists.

Goddammit.

I threw a television out of a hotel room window the next night. Biggest cliche ever. I passed it off as ironic. Performance art. A moment of anachronistic hedonism in the style of Keith Moon. The problem with being attractive is that you almost always get what you want, and when you almost always get what you want, not getting what you want overwhelms you with the desire to destroy things.

God fucking dammit.


End file.
